1917.] Numismatic Supplement No. XXVIII. 101 



word has of course no connection with the Arabic qadhi, 

 1 ' Musalman magistrate/' which is written cadi. The literal 

 translation of Gadi or Kadi Firocht is " the fortunate, victori- 

 ous," but here it means "Firoz the fortunate M and not King 



Firoz. 



On a gold coin in the Hermitage Museum, described by 

 Drouin (Bulletin numismatique, vol. II, 1893, p. 61 sq.), we 

 find on the obverse the legend Kavati Kadi, '* Kobad the fortu- 

 nate." 



On the coins of Balash (484-488), brother of Firoz I, the 



name Valkash (which according to the polyphony of the Pahlavi 

 letters was read Vardd a long time ago) is always preceded by 

 the epithet Hiikad or Hugad. In Pahlavi hu means ■ ■ good " and 

 kad or gad means Ci felicity M in Semitic ; so the epithet signi- 

 fies " the felicitous M or " the fortunate," like the Greek evrvxys 

 (See Bartholomaei and Dorn above cited). 



When Khusrau II was firmly established on the throne 

 (summer 591), he set himself to remove all dangerous persons, 

 especially Bindoe and the other conspirators who had over- 

 thrown his father and put him on the throne. Bistam, who was 

 governor of Khorasan, Kumis, Gurgan and Tabaristan, was 

 not so easily reached. When he saw himself condemned he 

 made himself King in Media with the help of the remnants of 

 Bahrain Chobin's forces and in alliance with the Turks and the 

 Delamites. On his defeat by Khusrau, he took refuge among 

 the Turks who were at that time in possession of Transoxiania, 



where he fell by treachery 



This drachme of Bistam, with the regnal year ten, sub- 

 stantiates the statement of the Arab historian Dinawari— as 

 against other authorities —whose account of the rebellion of 

 Bistam is more detailed than that of Tabari and others. Dina- 

 wari says that Khusrau had to wait for ten years before he 

 could avenge himself on Bistam. Accordingly Bistam may be 

 said to have reigned for ten years, for he counted his regnal 



lsrati came to the throne. The 



Kh 



Khusrau 



Noeldeke, however, is inclined to disbelieve Dinawari's 

 assertion on the ground that "in that case the great war 

 against the Romans would already have begun even before the 

 suppression of the rebellion, which must, however, have so 

 much drained the military and financial resources of the state 

 that above all it needed a number of peaceful years." 



Noeldeke's argument does not seem to me to be very 

 strong, as the Roman war began early in 604. 



Noeldeke gives the period of rule of Bistam from the begin- 

 ning of 592 to the beginning of 596. He commenced to rule 

 during the second regnal year of Khusrau, which era he also 

 adopted, and hence we do not meet with any coins of his first 

 regnal year. 



